"Great," I said. "Now I not only have to stop Anza, but I have to stop the Archers as well."
"And we still don't have the Orb," Omega said.
"You don't even have it?" Mom asked.
"Alpha had it when it went crazy and wrecked part of the city."
"And part of Alpha," Omega said.
"So what happened to the Orb?" Mom asked.
Beta finished removing the arrow from her shoulder and bandaged her up. Mom moved her shoulder around, winced a bit, then looked at me.
"I'm guessing it's somewhere in the middle of that mess," I said. "But first we're going to see Alpha. Can you get those magic critters out of him?"
"I'm not sure. We may need the Forest Orb first."
"We need Alpha to find out what happened to the Forest Orb," I said.
"Datapad," Beta said.
"Use the datapad to review his recordings?" I said. Beta simply nodded. "Why didn't I think of that?"
I retrieved my datapad from one of the storage compartments. One with an arrow. Remember how I said nothing important had been damaged? Turned out I was wrong.
"I guess we need to get the spare from the University Lab," I said, showing the datapad, now with a giant arrow hole through the middle, to Mom, Omega, and Beta.
We rode the rest of the way to Arcadia Station in silence. Enjoying being near each other. Omega tried a few times to start conversation with Mom, but she hadn't taken any painkillers for her shoulder and wasn't really in the mood. Omega settled for laying his head in her lap.
As we neared Arcadia Station, all four of us--yes, even Beta--gasped at what had happened in our absence. The Forest Orb hadn't stopped doing whatever it was doing while we had been gone. The hill that Alpha accidentally created, forever more dubbed Alpha Hill, had expanded in both height and girth, now stretching nearly a half mile across, and nearly half as tall. More of the city had been lifted, and I hope evacuated. The University Lab was near the edge of the latest upheaval, so we were cutting it close.
"Mom? Any ideas on why it's growing?" I asked.
"Alpha must have stirred up the magic in the Orb so that it felt attacked and the Orb then retaliated."
"He used a magnetometer to try and get some readings," I said.
"Sending a magnetic wave at the Orb would make the magic lash out, sensing it as a radiation type of attack. Yes, Alpha did this."
"How do we stop it?" Omega asked. "Will it destroy Arcadia Station? Will we have to move to Prometheus? Or Chronos? I don't like them. All my friends are here."
"If we can recover the Orb, we should be able to save Arcadia Station," Mom said. "Then we can negotiate with Anza about expanding Tanglewood in a different direction."
"An alliance with Arcadia?" I said. "Think you could work with Dad to arrange that?"
Mom thought about that for a minute. "As long as he is willing to work with me, yes I think we can."
We neared the University and I resumed manual control as the landing pad was no longer level. I brought the hover-truck in for a landing and activated the non-skid clamps just in case the pad tilted more. I didn't want my hover-truck sliding off the edge of the hundred foot high platform.
My lab was still secure, and we looked in on Alpha through the small window in the door. He was still powered down, but he had a solid green glow around his head. I turned to ask Mom a question, but stopped when I saw the worried look on her face.
"The Orb is taking over Alpha. It's learning his systems."
"Is that even possible?" I asked.
"It seems like it."
Beta stepped between us. "I'll grab datapad," he said, and entered the lab. Beta stopped as the door closed behind him, and he glanced at Alpha's prone body on the table. Beta stepped to the cabinet to grab the extra datapad. As soon as his back was turned, Alpha's head turned in his direction.
"Beta, get outta there!" I screamed.
Beta looked at Alpha, saw his brother's eyes glowing green and pointed in his direction. He grabbed the datapad, and dove for the door. Mom and I stepped out of the way, and had the door open for him to come through. We slammed and locked the door just before Alpha reached us.
"I will fertilize the soil with your flesh," Alpha hissed at us.
I felt tears sting my eyes, but didn't say anything. I keyed in a security override to the door to make sure it couldn't be opened from the inside, then turned to Mom and the boys. "Let's go." I walked away from the lab.
"But... Alpha..." Omega said. "What are we..."
"We can't do anything for him here. We need to get the Orb to set him right," I said. "Trust me, Omega, I don't like leaving him like this, but unless we find the Orb, we aren't going to be able to fix him."
Omega looked at Alpha through the window, and I swear that if he had tear ducts, he would have cried.
"Let's go," I said.
We went back to the hover-truck before I looked at the datapad. It came up and it took a couple minutes to find the recording. We all sat in silence while I did. It was an uncomfortable moment, and even Beta, who was quiet almost all the time, looked uncomfortable. I think it was because of what was going on with Alpha showed that the Wolfdroids were mortal too, in their own way. And no one enjoyed being reminded of their own mortality.
"Got it," I said. Mom and the boys crowded around me while the video played.
Looking through Alpha's eyes, the screen also showed various diagnostics and his HUD in real-time. I found the proper timestamp and started the playback. Alpha didn't talk to himself while working, the way Omega did, so I had to guess at things that happened off-screen. As soon as he picked up the magnetometer, the Orb's glow increased.
"That's interesting," Alpha said. The revelation had to have had quite an impact on him for him to actually comment aloud.
He moved the magnetometer sensor, which looked very similar to a defibrillator paddle, towards the Orb, glanced at the magnetometer screen to make sure it was turned on and active, then turned back to the Orb. He placed the sensor paddle near the Orb, pressed the button, and the screen turned green. After about three seconds, the glow cleared and we were looking straight up towards a tree that was growing before our eyes. I paused the playback and looked at Beta.
"The base of the tree is where I found him," he said.
"Then we start our search there," I said. "Strap in, we're headed for Alpha Hill."